1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a baseball game simulative of real-life baseball play, which in various embodiments may be played by one or two game players in a short period of time, e.g., on the order of from about fifteen to about sixty minutes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Reflecting the popularity of baseball and its status as the "national pastime," a variety of baseball board games and table baseball games have been developed, which in varying degrees attempt to simulate the activity, strategy, and tactics of real-life baseball play.
An example of one such type of baseball game is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,569 to S. J. Frohlich. The board game of this patent utilizes a board on which a baseball diamond is depicted and markers are employed to represent base runners. A pair of different dice, or other random generators, are used to generate numbers from which the action of the play is determined. The game uses a set of ball player cards, on the face of which is printed the ball player's name, position and a list of possible results from the random number generator. Each of such numbers has associated therewith a play event. The game uses a set of gamble cards each of which contains a symbol for one of a pitcher and a batter, so that there are both pitcher and batter cards in the set, an indication of possible locations of the furthest advanced base runner, and opposite each indication a statement of a play event. The gamble cards are chosen whenever a player rolls a "doubles", i.e., the face value on each die in the set of dice is the same.
In one embodiment of the game disclosed in this patent, the advancement of base runners is determined by reference to a runner reaction chart containing a list of possible batting results. Opposite this list of batting results is a statement of how the various base runners advance for a particular hitting performance, as initially determined on the ball player cards. The patent also discloses to utilize a plurality of separate event cards in place of the ball player cards.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a baseball game which is simple in procedure of play, which typically may be played in a short time, e.g., on the order of from about fifteen minutes to an hour.
It is another object of the invention to provide a baseball game which is adapted to the level of skill, ability, and baseball knowledge of the participant players, offering its players the opportunity to exercise a level of play commensurate with their capabilities, so that sophisticated players may adopt correspondingly complex strategies and tactics.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a historically and statistically-based baseball game which is simulative of real-life major league baseball play.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a table baseball game which is simple in construction and is easily and quickly learned.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be more fully apparent from the ensuing disclosure and appended claims.